Apple has released a new Rapid Security Response for the iPhones, iPads, and Mac computing products. These updates went out as iOS 16.5.1 (a), iPadOS 16.5.1 (a), and macOS Ventura 13.4.1 (a). Despite it being a critical update, as of now, there are no notes with regard to what has been fixed. So if you are using any of these devices and are running the latest version of the OS, it might be a good idea to check for updates to ensure that you have the Rapid Security Response downloaded to your product.
Although the latest update is up on Apple's support website, the company presented more details with the previous Rapid Security Response release, sharing why these types of quick updates are important.
"They deliver important security improvements between software updates — for example, improvements to the Safari web browser, the WebKit framework stack, or other critical system libraries. They may also be used to mitigate some security issues more quickly, such as issues that might have been exploited or reported to exist "in the wild."
Although the previous release came in at 85.2MB, this latest update comes in at only 2.7MB. As mentioned before, this Rapid Security Response is also rolling out to the iPad and Mac, as long as the devices are running iPadOS 16.5.1 and macOS 13.4.1 respectively. The update should automatically download to your device if it is set to do so, and if not, you can head into the Settings menu and refresh to see the latest update available.
Once the download is finished, the device will request that you restart the product. After this is complete, you will have installed the latest security update. In order to confirm that the update was downloaded and installed properly, you'll want to head into the About section and confirm that your software version now has "(a)" next to it. If so, the process was successful, if not, you'll want to head back into the Settings menu and try the update again.